Migraine Awareness

October 24, 2017

Migraine affects 1 in 7 people, that’s over eight million people in the United Kingdom alone, making it more prevalent than diabetes, epilepsy and asthma combined. The World Health Organisation recognises migraine as one of the most disabling lifetime conditions yet awareness and understanding is low.
Migraine is a complex neurological disorder with no known cause or cure. Unfortunately many people will suffer from migraine for years throughout their life negatively impacting upon their work, family and social lives

What is migraine?
Migraine is a complex condition with a wide variety of symptoms. For many people the main feature is a painful headache. Other symptoms include disturbed vision, sensitivity to light, sound and smells, feeling sick and vomiting. Migraine attacks can be very frightening and may result in you having to lie still for several hours.
The symptoms will vary from person to person and individuals may have different symptoms during different attacks. Your attacks may differ in length and frequency. Migraine attacks usually last from 4 to 72 hours and most people are free from symptoms between attacks. Migraine can have an enormous impact on your work, family and social lives.

Headache or migraine?
Distinguishing between different types of headache can be difficult. You can experience different types of headaches at different times of your life for varying reasons. For example, if you have migraine you may also experience other types of headache. Keeping a migraine or headache diary is really useful and can be invaluable in trying to identify a specific headache type.

What is the treatment?
The complex nature of migraine means that the treatments available are varied and differ from person to person. There is currently no cure for migraine

What causes migraine?
There is no known cause for migraine, although most people with it are genetically predisposed to migraine. If you are susceptible to migraine there are certain triggers which commonly occur. These include stress, lack of food, alcohol, hormonal changes in women, lack of sleep and the environment.

For more information visit www.migrainetrust.org or call 020 7631 6970